Quotes & Sayings About Honesty Is Not The Best Policy

The thing that I think a lot of guys need to know how to do is not take your mother's advice about honesty being the best policy. Listen to your cool, drunk uncle who tells you to lie. Those are the relationships that last. — Adam DeVine

Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does regard it as a policy. — Walter Lippmann

Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just. — George Washington

Honesty is always the best policy, even when it's not the trend. — Sean Covey

Some people will tell you that honesty is the best policy, but I disagree. In instances like this, I fully believe that feigned ignorance is the best policy. — Leila Sales

Honesty is the best policy anyone need". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Honesty is occasionally the best policy," she said yawning. And then she added, "By the Black Staff of Beldar, I am tired. If I can find a usable bed in what's left of my house I intend to collapse on it. And Elwyn, if you disturb me before dawn, I promise, I will turn you into a train of thought, and lose you. — L.J.Smith

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not. — Dean Inge

Even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The adult author finds that by inadvertently violating the school's alcohol policy, she breaks down some part of the barrier between her and the younger students who are subject to more rules. — Rebekah Nathan

Honesty, like my mama always says, is always the best policy. — Kelly Rowland

Honesty has become the second best policy with your spouse ... discretions apply elsewhere — Amit Abraham

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical. — Margaret Fuller

Honesty is not the best policy - merely the safest — William Shakespeare

Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while. — Richard M. Nixon

You see, I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking, which is, if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it. — Taylor Mali

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy.Bothyourreligionand policy must be basedon it. — John Ruskin

Honesty is always the best policy. — George Washington

A man sits in an office deciding what stocks to buy. He imagines, no doubt, that he is planning his purchases according to his own judgment. In actual fact his judgment is a melange of impressions stamped on his mind by outside influences which unconsciously control his thought. He buys a certain railroad stock because it was in the headlines yesterday and hence is the one which comes most prominently to his mind; because he has a pleasant recollection of a good dinner on one of its fast trains; because it has a liberal labor policy, a reputation for honesty; because he has been told that J. P. Morgan owns some of its shares. — Edward L. Bernays

Once it becomes a secret, it's hard to let it out. If you don't keep it inside to begin with, it doesn't get the chance to fester and rot. So, honesty is my policy. — C.M. Stunich

Honesty is not always the best
policy when it hurts the
person you care about the
most and pushes them away. — Alison G. Bailey

The man who believes that honesty is the best policy is not an honest man. — Paul Hoffman

Honesty is the best policy. — Benjamin Franklin

In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy. — W. Somerset Maugham

In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end. — Gerald R. Ford

Honesty is not necessarily the best policy. The best policy would be to acquire a reputation for honesty and then to cheat at the psychological moment. — William Lyon Phelps

Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy — Michel De Montaigne

And what is true education? It is awakening a love for truth; giving a just sense of duty; opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life. It is not so much giving words, as thoughts; or mere maxims, as living principles. It is not teaching to be honest, because 'honesty is the best policy'; but because it is right. It is teaching the individual to love the good, for the sake of the good; to be virtuous in action because one is so in heart; to love and serve God supremely, not from fear, but from delight in his perfect character. — David O. McKay

I'd say honesty is always the best policy. There are always a lot of arguments - but even if honesty starts some, it avoids bigger ones. — Penn Dayton Badgley

When the name of Gail Wynand became a threat in the publishing world, a group of newspaper owners took him aside-at a city charity affair which all had to attend-and reproached him for what they called hid debasement of the public taste.
"It is not my function" said Wynand, "to help people preserve a self-respect they haven't got. You give them what they profess to like in public, I give them what they really like. Honesty is the best policy, gentlemen, though not quite in the sense you were taught to belive". — Ayn Rand

Some things transcend politics and policy and the lust for power. Truth, honesty, integrity, decency and fairness are immutable values. They are the ethical substance of life. They ought to be cherished. To sell them out is to sell one's soul. — Michael Short

The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy. — Robert E.Lee

Yeah, well you know what they say. Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. — Stacy Mantle

Strict honesty was the policy of most of them; although there were a few who were said to 'find anything before 'tis lost' and to whom findings were keepings. — Flora Thompson

Honesty is the best policy ; a policy is, after all, a strategy for living in the polis in the city ... — Samuel R. Delany

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man. — Richard Whately

Honesty is the best policy, in love as in law ... — Louisa May Alcott

Good people can disagree - all you want is honesty, because you know, if I disagree, I'm willing to debate you on that, and then let the public decide what's good policy and bad policy. — Russell Pearce

There are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness. — Frank Herbert

You don't have to pick me up," I said in a rush.
"Considering you have no idea where we're going and I have no intention of telling you, I'm quite sure that I do."
"I can meet you somewhere centrally located."
Noah sounded amused. "I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I'll even bring flowers for the occasion."
"Oh, God. Please don't." I said. Maybe honesty is the best policy. "My family is going to screw with my life if you come over." I knew them far too well.
"Congratulations
you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What is your address? — Michelle Hodkin

Honesty is not only the best policy, it is rare enough today to make you pleasantly conspicuous. — Charles H. Brower

You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. . . . Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what you are not. — David McCullough

In the long run, I believe that honesty is definitely the best policy. One can get away by being dishonest for a short term, but ultimately, honesty is what pays. — Kapil Dev

Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable. — Patricia Highsmith

Honesty is the best policy because there can be nothing less. — Robert Monroe

Is there a difference between a man who thinks that honesty is the best policy, and an honest man? — C.S. Lewis

Honesty is the best policy. But insanity is a hell of a lot more effective in court. So your set, McMullen — Lois Greiman

Honesty is not the best policy in life. Only, perhaps, in art. — Salman Rushdie

In both metaphysics and art, honesty is the best policy. Keep it clean. — Edward Abbey

Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself. — William Shakespeare

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it. — Mark Twain

If the mood is overly anxious, then anxiety must be reduced by lowering uncertainty. Very simply, uncertainty is reduced when people are told what's going on and what will happen to them. In the vacuum of no news, people imagine the worst. Since disappointment is much easier to handle than anxiety, then, good news or bad, honesty is honestly the best policy. — Judith M Bardwick

Whoever claimed honesty is the best policy, or even a good one, clearly had very limited experience with the real world. — Jeff Lindsay

Honesty is the best policy. It's also the most profitable. — Michael J. Sandel

Honesty is the best policy in international relations, interpersonal relations, labor, business, education, family and crime control because truth is the only thing that works and the only foundation on which lasting relations can build. — Ramsey Clark

From your confessor, lawyer and doctor, hide not your case on no condition. [Is this a way of saying that honesty is the best policy?] — John Harington

Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own. — Charles Caleb Colton

We may argue eloquently that 'Honesty is the best Policy' - unfortunately, the moment honesty is adopted for the sake of policy it mysteriously ceases to be honesty. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Honesty is better than any policy. — Immanuel Kant

People like to see honest persons. So I certainly will advise many young people who want to participate in politics, honesty is the best policy. — Ma Ying-jeou

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations ... entangling alliances with none — Thomas Jefferson

It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals. — George Washington

Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves. — James A. Garfield

Sorry about being late," Trina said. "I'd make up a great excuse, but honesty's the best policy. Mark made me go up to the stream and we ... you know." It took a lot to surprise Mark these days, even more to make him blush, but Trina had the ability to do both. He stammered as Lana rolled her eyes. — James Dashner

Honesty is the best Policy is the Capitalistic thought as it gives free of cost Security to their assets and to their investments........ — Tarif Naaz

But honesty is not always the best policy, no matter what the Boy Scouts may tell you. So I just shook my head at his inane question. "Too soon to tell," I said. — Jeff Lindsay

All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning of interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state. — Edmund Burke

Because, you know, evil demon librarians, not so much known for the honesty policy. — Michelle Knudsen

Honesty's the best policy. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Coach's Rule: never admit a lack of experience or knowledge. Carry on at all times as though you've guided a hundred champion crews. Honesty is not the best policy when leading a bunch of college rowers. They are looking for strong, disciplined leadership and not a kinder, gentler coach. Once you've established a certain attitude and demeanor, it's nearly impossible to change to a difference mode in mid-season. — Brad Alan Lewis

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. — Mark Twain

When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." — Robert Green Ingersoll